A comment on this Province article online.
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3:41 PM on 11/4/2011
What about her assault on her poor, defenseless eyebrows. Another two years for that at least.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Comment of the week
What about her assault on her poor, defenseless eyebrows. Another two years for that at least.
A comment on this Province article online.
A comment on this Province article online.
Gratitude for justice after 19 very difficult years
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PROVINCE - NOVEMBER 6th, 2011 - KEITH FRASER
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19-year ordeal ends for dead woman's kin
Jean Ann James, 72, killed friend in 1992, not eligible for parole for 25 years
Family members of murder victim Gladys Wakabayashi, who say they have waited 19 years for justice, were gratified to see a jury render a guilty verdict Friday.
After less than a day of deliberations, the B.C. Supreme Court jury found Wakabayashi's friend, Jean Ann James, guilty of first-degree murder for the June 1992 slaying.
Justice Catherine Bruce imposed the mandatory sentence of life in prison with no parole eligibility for 25 years.
The 72-year-old Richmond woman had little reaction to the verdict.
But several members of the victim's family were obviously relieved.
"We would like to extend our gratitude to everybody who contributed so much and helped us so much," Susanna Yang, Wakabayashi's sister-in-law, said outside court, thanking the Vancouver police, the RCMP, the judge and the jury for a "wonderful job."
"We just think that the justice system works even after this amount of time, that something like this can come to fruition and that the long arm of the law is a true statement," said Doran Aisenstat, Wakabayashi's son-in-law.
Yang said the past 19 years had been "very difficult," but the family never gave up.
The verdict in the sensational trial followed about three weeks of evidence, the most compelling of which was James' taped confession to undercover cops.
The body of 41-year-old Wakabayashi, the daughter of a Taiwanese billionaire, was found in her Shaughnessy home.
No charges were initially laid, and the case lay cold for nearly 15 years, until Vancouver police reviewed the file and launched a year-long undercover operation aimed at getting a confession from James.
The so-called Mr. Big operation took James through dozens of scenarios in which she was asked to perform tasks for what she was told was a criminal organization. She told undercover cops that she had no conscience and was willing to do anything for them.
At the end of the operation, James was told that there was a "big score" in which she could share in a $700,000 windfall for helping commit an unspecified crime.
James travelled to Montreal, where she was confronted by the "crime boss," an undercover cop, who demanded that she come clean about the murder of Wakabayashi.
In a confession captured on videotape and played for the jury, James explained calmly that she discovered Wakabayashi "screwing around" with her husband, Derek James.
"I slit her throat," she told the fake crime boss, who cannot be identified due to a publication ban.
James said she used box cutters to slash her friend across the throat and cut her on the legs in a bid to find out details of the infidelity.
James said she disposed of the murder weapon in a dumpster on the other side of town and threw her clothes in a school incinerator.
She said she used gloves during the crime, left nothing behind and never told her husband about it.
Though police had her as a suspect, she said she'd been to the Wakabayashi home several days before the murder to visit her friend and that "my fingerprints were all over the house."
"I didn't like the police coming around, but I wasn't shook up about it," she said.
James' lawyer, Aseem Dosanjh, argued Mr. Big confessions are by their very nature unreliable, some would say "notoriously" unreliable.
© Copyright (c) The Province
PROVINCE - NOVEMBER 6th, 2011 - KEITH FRASER
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19-year ordeal ends for dead woman's kin
Jean Ann James, 72, killed friend in 1992, not eligible for parole for 25 years
Family members of murder victim Gladys Wakabayashi, who say they have waited 19 years for justice, were gratified to see a jury render a guilty verdict Friday.
After less than a day of deliberations, the B.C. Supreme Court jury found Wakabayashi's friend, Jean Ann James, guilty of first-degree murder for the June 1992 slaying.
Justice Catherine Bruce imposed the mandatory sentence of life in prison with no parole eligibility for 25 years.
The 72-year-old Richmond woman had little reaction to the verdict.
But several members of the victim's family were obviously relieved.
"We would like to extend our gratitude to everybody who contributed so much and helped us so much," Susanna Yang, Wakabayashi's sister-in-law, said outside court, thanking the Vancouver police, the RCMP, the judge and the jury for a "wonderful job."
"We just think that the justice system works even after this amount of time, that something like this can come to fruition and that the long arm of the law is a true statement," said Doran Aisenstat, Wakabayashi's son-in-law.
Yang said the past 19 years had been "very difficult," but the family never gave up.
The verdict in the sensational trial followed about three weeks of evidence, the most compelling of which was James' taped confession to undercover cops.
The body of 41-year-old Wakabayashi, the daughter of a Taiwanese billionaire, was found in her Shaughnessy home.
No charges were initially laid, and the case lay cold for nearly 15 years, until Vancouver police reviewed the file and launched a year-long undercover operation aimed at getting a confession from James.
The so-called Mr. Big operation took James through dozens of scenarios in which she was asked to perform tasks for what she was told was a criminal organization. She told undercover cops that she had no conscience and was willing to do anything for them.
At the end of the operation, James was told that there was a "big score" in which she could share in a $700,000 windfall for helping commit an unspecified crime.
James travelled to Montreal, where she was confronted by the "crime boss," an undercover cop, who demanded that she come clean about the murder of Wakabayashi.
In a confession captured on videotape and played for the jury, James explained calmly that she discovered Wakabayashi "screwing around" with her husband, Derek James.
"I slit her throat," she told the fake crime boss, who cannot be identified due to a publication ban.
James said she used box cutters to slash her friend across the throat and cut her on the legs in a bid to find out details of the infidelity.
James said she disposed of the murder weapon in a dumpster on the other side of town and threw her clothes in a school incinerator.
She said she used gloves during the crime, left nothing behind and never told her husband about it.
Though police had her as a suspect, she said she'd been to the Wakabayashi home several days before the murder to visit her friend and that "my fingerprints were all over the house."
"I didn't like the police coming around, but I wasn't shook up about it," she said.
James' lawyer, Aseem Dosanjh, argued Mr. Big confessions are by their very nature unreliable, some would say "notoriously" unreliable.
© Copyright (c) The Province
Friday, November 4, 2011
I can tell
I can tell that this story interests a LOT of people, probably for different reasons. So far today over 600 people have visited this blog, 4000 people since the trial started. That's a lot considering this is a local cold case murder that is over 20 years old.
Thankfully, thank every and any God or devine spirit you believe in, Jean James is now in jail! Some justice for Gladys and her family. They have been so very patient, and trusting - in a system that failed them initially.
Who am I and why do I have a blog about this murder, and moreso this crazy woman, Jean Ann James? Will this blog die out and end now that Jean James has gone to jail for a murder she committed 20 years ago?
No. The is so much more to this story!! Her story.
I can tell you I have known about this murder since almost day one.
I can tell you I have been in the company of Derek and Jean James - no, I am not friendly with them.
I can tell you that there is so much more I can not tell you... Yet.
I have no intention of dragging Gladys Wakabayashi's name throughout the mud - or make constant reference to her rich father, like the papers felt they needed to do, as though that was the only validation stamp on her life - she suffered a fate that was not hers to suffer.
I want to tell you of a woman so evil that she regularly did wrong and created a life that was built on deceit.
Let's remember, the bulk of the information given at trial was referring to the sting that caused her to be recorded confessing. Very little information was given regarding the actual crime or the weeks, months and years before and after the murder.
I bet Derek James is sleeping better tonight than he has in 20 years. No presents from Jean to worry about.
Thankfully, thank every and any God or devine spirit you believe in, Jean James is now in jail! Some justice for Gladys and her family. They have been so very patient, and trusting - in a system that failed them initially.
Who am I and why do I have a blog about this murder, and moreso this crazy woman, Jean Ann James? Will this blog die out and end now that Jean James has gone to jail for a murder she committed 20 years ago?
No. The is so much more to this story!! Her story.
I can tell you I have known about this murder since almost day one.
I can tell you I have been in the company of Derek and Jean James - no, I am not friendly with them.
I can tell you that there is so much more I can not tell you... Yet.
I have no intention of dragging Gladys Wakabayashi's name throughout the mud - or make constant reference to her rich father, like the papers felt they needed to do, as though that was the only validation stamp on her life - she suffered a fate that was not hers to suffer.
I want to tell you of a woman so evil that she regularly did wrong and created a life that was built on deceit.
Let's remember, the bulk of the information given at trial was referring to the sting that caused her to be recorded confessing. Very little information was given regarding the actual crime or the weeks, months and years before and after the murder.
I bet Derek James is sleeping better tonight than he has in 20 years. No presents from Jean to worry about.
"Boxcutter Murder"
I want to say that Kim Bolan @The Vancouver Sun provided excellent coverage through the trial.
Jury convicts Jean Ann James of Boxcutter Murder.
Jean Ann James expressed no emotion Friday morning when a jury found her guilty in the first-degree murder of Gladys Wakabayashi.
At 72, she will likely spend the rest of her life in jail with an automatic sentence of 25 years to life.
Yet she didn’t break down and cry, or express anger, or regret. She looked straight ahead and then she walked away with a sheriff to her new life in prison.
On the other hand, Gladys Wakabayashi’s family did break down. Her sister-in-law Susanna, cried and smiled. She hugged prosecutor Kerr Clark outside court. A family friend said “justice at last.”
Wakabayashi’s throat was slit with boxcutters about 9:15 a.m. on June 24, 1992. For years, James kept her dark secret, even when police searched her house a week or so after the crime. But she was lured by an undercover operation where a number of officers posed as members of a crime ring that embraced the eager James in its activities. She eventually confessed to a skilled operative posing as the crime boss in chilling detail, saying she felt no regrets about killing her former friend.
James’ lawyers had suggested she fabricated the confession using details from newspaper articles at the time. But a jury saw it differently. They deliberated for less than eight hours before convicting her.
Jury convicts Jean Ann James of Boxcutter Murder.
Jean Ann James expressed no emotion Friday morning when a jury found her guilty in the first-degree murder of Gladys Wakabayashi.
At 72, she will likely spend the rest of her life in jail with an automatic sentence of 25 years to life.
Yet she didn’t break down and cry, or express anger, or regret. She looked straight ahead and then she walked away with a sheriff to her new life in prison.
On the other hand, Gladys Wakabayashi’s family did break down. Her sister-in-law Susanna, cried and smiled. She hugged prosecutor Kerr Clark outside court. A family friend said “justice at last.”
Wakabayashi’s throat was slit with boxcutters about 9:15 a.m. on June 24, 1992. For years, James kept her dark secret, even when police searched her house a week or so after the crime. But she was lured by an undercover operation where a number of officers posed as members of a crime ring that embraced the eager James in its activities. She eventually confessed to a skilled operative posing as the crime boss in chilling detail, saying she felt no regrets about killing her former friend.
James’ lawyers had suggested she fabricated the confession using details from newspaper articles at the time. But a jury saw it differently. They deliberated for less than eight hours before convicting her.
It took 20 years to get 25 in jail
Doran Aisenstat and Susanna Miu (Yang) react to verdict in the Jean Ann James murder trial. on Friday, November 4, 2011 in Vancouver.
Photograph by: Glenn Baglo, PNG
Family members of murder victim Gladys Wakabayashi, who say they have waited 20 years for justice, were gratified to see a jury render a guilty verdict Friday.
After less than a day of deliberations, the B.C. Supreme Court jury found Jean Ann James, a friend of Wakabayashi, guilty of first-degree murder in the June 1992 slaying.
B.C. Supreme Court Madam Justice Catherine Bruce imposed on James, 72, the mandatory sentence of life in prison with no parole eligibility for 25 years.
The Richmond senior had little reaction to the jury's verdict.
But several members of the victim's family were obviously relieved.
"We would like to extend our gratitude to everybody who contributed so much and helped us so much," Susanna Yang, Gladys' sister-in-law, said outside court.
She thanked the Vancouver police, the RCMP, the judge and the jury for a "wonderful job."
"We just think that the justice system works even after this amount of time, that something like this can come to fruition and that the long arm of the law is a true statement," said Doran Aisenstat, Gladys' son-in-law.
"It doesn't stop. If a crime is committed, justice is going to be served."
Yang said the past 19 years had been been "very difficult" but the family never gave up.
Aisenstat said he wasn't surprised at James' reaction, calling her a "cold individual, without a conscience," as the accused had portrayed herself to undercover cops.
"For her to have had the life she has had for the last 19 years, knowing what wad in her history, it's obviously a huge vindication for us."
The verdict in the sensational trial followed about three weeks of evidence, the most compelling of which was James’s taped confession to undercover cops.
It was 19 years ago that the body of 41-year-old Wakabayashi was found in her home in the posh neighbourhood of Shaughnessy.
No charges were initially laid by Vancouver police and the case lay cold for nearly 15 years, until police reviewed the file and launched a year-long undercover operation aimed at getting a confession from James.
The so-called Mr. Big operation took James through dozens of scenarios in which she was asked to perform tasks for what she was told was a criminal organization.
During one scenario, in which undercover cops stage a kidnapping, James is asked what they should do with the victim.
She responds that they should cut his “knackers” off.
James also told undercover cops that she had no conscience and was willing to do anything for them.
At the end of the operation, James is told that there is a “big score” in which she can share in a $700,000 windfall for helping commit an unspecified crime.
She travels to Montreal, where she is confronted by the “crime boss,” an undercover cop who demands that she come clean about the murder of Wakabayashi, the daughter of a Taiwanese billionaire.
In a confession captured on videotape and played for the jury, James explains calmly that she discovered Wakabayashi “screwing around” with her husband, Derek James.
“I slit her throat,” the accused told the fake crime boss, who cannot be identified due to a publication ban.
James says she used box cutters to slash her friend across the throat and cut her on the legs in a bid to find out details of the infidelity.
“I just went around to her and confronted her about it and she lied to me ... She just started laughing in my face and I just got furious and I did it.”
The accused said she disposed of the murder weapon in a dumpster on the other side of town and took her clothes and threw them in a school incinerator.
She said she used gloves during the crime, left nothing behind and never told her husband about the crime.
Though police had her as a suspect, she said she’d been to the Wakabayashi home several days before the murder to visit her friend and that “my fingerprints were all over the house.”
“I didn’t like the police coming around, but I wasn’t shook up about it,” she said.
In final submissions to the jury, Crown counsel Kerr Clark argued that James was in a jealous rage when she murdered her friend.
Her husband had had other affairs, but the accused’s anger was heightened by the fact that Wakabayashi was a trusted friend, said Clark.
James’s lawyer, Aseem Dosanjh, argued Mr. Big confessions are by their very nature unreliable, some would say “notoriously” unreliable.
He noted there was no DNA or fingerprint evidence and submitted that it was a “false-confession case.”
(Article above from the Province online & photo from Vancouver Sun online.)
GUILTY, James looked calm
Vancouver Sun...
Jean Ann James found guilty of 1992 Vancouver murder
James looked calm after learning jurors had reached a verdict after eight hours of deliberations
VANCOUVER -- A jury convicted Richmond senior Jean Ann James of first-degree murder Friday in the slaying of a woman she thought was sleeping with her husband back in 1992.
James looked calm after learning jurors had reached a verdict after eight hours of deliberations.
James, 72, was found guilty of slitting the throat of Gladys Wakabayashi, 41, on June 24, 1992.
Her lawyers had argued she falsely confessed to an undercover police operative posing as a crime boss who offered her the chance to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars in his gang.
Justice Catherine Bruce urged jurors Thursday to carefully consider whether the evidence supports the Crown or defence versions of the murder of the heiress.
The jurors began deliberations about 3 p.m. Thursday after a four-week B.C. Supreme Court trial.
Bruce spent the much of Thursday summarizing both the defence and prosecution positions, as well as the witness testimony during the sensational murder trial at the Vancouver Law Courts.
Wakabayashi, the daughter of a Taiwanese billionaire, was found in the master suite of her home at 6868 Selkirk Street in Vancouver by her estranged husband and 12-year-old daughter.
James was a suspect from the beginning, though there was no forensic evidence linking her to the slaying. In 2007, the unsolved homicide unit mounted an undercover operation targeting James.
Jean Ann James found guilty of 1992 Vancouver murder
James looked calm after learning jurors had reached a verdict after eight hours of deliberations
VANCOUVER -- A jury convicted Richmond senior Jean Ann James of first-degree murder Friday in the slaying of a woman she thought was sleeping with her husband back in 1992.
James looked calm after learning jurors had reached a verdict after eight hours of deliberations.
James, 72, was found guilty of slitting the throat of Gladys Wakabayashi, 41, on June 24, 1992.
Her lawyers had argued she falsely confessed to an undercover police operative posing as a crime boss who offered her the chance to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars in his gang.
Justice Catherine Bruce urged jurors Thursday to carefully consider whether the evidence supports the Crown or defence versions of the murder of the heiress.
The jurors began deliberations about 3 p.m. Thursday after a four-week B.C. Supreme Court trial.
Bruce spent the much of Thursday summarizing both the defence and prosecution positions, as well as the witness testimony during the sensational murder trial at the Vancouver Law Courts.
Wakabayashi, the daughter of a Taiwanese billionaire, was found in the master suite of her home at 6868 Selkirk Street in Vancouver by her estranged husband and 12-year-old daughter.
James was a suspect from the beginning, though there was no forensic evidence linking her to the slaying. In 2007, the unsolved homicide unit mounted an undercover operation targeting James.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
I'm sorry, what?!
From The Sun article walker today...
Who thinks they are talking to major criminals and feels they need to - again and again and again, at different times - seem like bad-ass granny that would do stuff like this because they fear bad-ass-bubba in the corner, or could use an extra $233,333?! I could certainly use $233,333... But would I feel pressured to seem like I could do these things in order to get the money knowing I would actually, for real, have to do similar things?!
Let's remember Jean James kept choosing to involve herself with these "criminals" and clearly was not that scared of them on that fact alone. But to go so far as to say she was intimidated by them and so falsified a confession to them?!
As far as Jean getting details wrong in her confession tape...
Would you tell a crime boss you are trying to impress that you threw out the bag of clothes in a random dumpster on the east side? No, you want to sound smarter than that!
Would you tell him that you walked around the house leaving bloody footprints? Or washed the weapon off in the bathroom? No, again, trying to impress him I doubt you want to seem that dumb.
The details she "got wrong"... They only make her seem smarter than she was. Yet, she still outsmart the investigators back in the day.
And she reminded jurors about testimony related to the other “scenarios” with the undercover operatives, including a fake kidnapping and beating in October 2008 of someone who owed the gang money.
Witnesses said James was not rattled by the kidnapping or apparent injuries of the victim and told the operatives they didn’t go far enough with the man. “When he had gone, Ms. James said that he got off too easy, she did not like his attitude and suggested that she could put raw meat on his crotch and let her dogs eat it off,” Bruce said. “She had never done this before, but believed that her dogs would have lunged at the meat.”
The judge also noted that James had said “she would curl [the victim’s] penis with a curling iron.”
“When asked about her suggestions as to what to do with [the victim,] Ms. James replied that they should cut his knackers off,” Bruce said.
Who thinks they are talking to major criminals and feels they need to - again and again and again, at different times - seem like bad-ass granny that would do stuff like this because they fear bad-ass-bubba in the corner, or could use an extra $233,333?! I could certainly use $233,333... But would I feel pressured to seem like I could do these things in order to get the money knowing I would actually, for real, have to do similar things?!
Let's remember Jean James kept choosing to involve herself with these "criminals" and clearly was not that scared of them on that fact alone. But to go so far as to say she was intimidated by them and so falsified a confession to them?!
As far as Jean getting details wrong in her confession tape...
Would you tell a crime boss you are trying to impress that you threw out the bag of clothes in a random dumpster on the east side? No, you want to sound smarter than that!
Would you tell him that you walked around the house leaving bloody footprints? Or washed the weapon off in the bathroom? No, again, trying to impress him I doubt you want to seem that dumb.
The details she "got wrong"... They only make her seem smarter than she was. Yet, she still outsmart the investigators back in the day.
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